Costco Drops Roundup Weedkiller After $80 Million Awarded In Second Cancer Case: Report

Costco has reportedly decided to stop selling Roundup weedkiller after a federal jury in San Francisco awarded more than $80 million to 70-year-old California man, Edwin Hardeman, who was diagnosed with cancer after spraying the herbicide on his property for decades. 

According to the founder of Moms Across America, Zen Honeycutt, Costco will no longer carry Roundup or other glyphosate-based herbicides in their spring shipments. 

Moms Across America founder Zen Honeycutt, whose petition calling for Costco to stop selling Roundup has more than 150,000 signatures on Change.org, wrote on her website:

“I called the headquarters, and after two days of messages and calls, I did finally confirm with three people that Costco was not ordering Roundup or any glyphosate-based herbicides for the incoming spring shipments.“

Costco has yet to issue an official statement on the petition. However, in conversations with the administrative staff at various stores, Big Think has learned that the product was pulled off the floor this week per corporate orders — meaning, Costco’s removal of Roundup applies to “all locations.” –Big Think

Honeycutt’s group is now petitioning Home Depot and Lowe’s to pull Roundup from their shelves as well. 

“We call on Home Depot and Lowe’s today to step up as Costco has to protect us, your customers, and stop selling Roundup (and all glyphosate herbicides) now, due to its carcinogenic effects and lack of labeling,” reads the petition. “Everyone deserves to know! These products should not be sold to the public!”

Bayer – which acquired the Roundup brand in its $63 billion purchase of Monsanto in June of last year, plans to appeal last week’s verdict, and “vigorously defend” its product, according to Bloomberg. Since the transaction, Bayer has lost over 40% of its value according to Bloomberg. 

The company will continue to “vigorously defend” the herbicide, which it considers safe, Christian Hartel, a spokesman, said by phone from Bayer’s headquarters in Leverkusen, Germany. It plans to appeal the verdict and doesn’t view the ruling as a harbinger for others because each trial has different factual and legal circumstances. –Bloomberg

Some aren’t so sure of Bayer’s strategy. 

“You can’t keep trying case after case after case and keep losing and say, ‘We’re not going to settle,” says trial lawyer Thomas G. Rohback of New York-based Axinn. If Bayer keeps losing Roundup cases, it “has to put the possibility of a settlement of these cases into the mix,” added Rohback. 

Third trial in Oakland

Bayer faces yet another trial in Oakland, California this year – however Bayer will be at a disadvantage over the two previous San Francisco federal court trials which allowed the company to split the case into two parts. 

Instead, the Oakland trial will permit lawyers to present jurors at the outset with their narrative about Monsanto Co.’s secret campaign to manipulate public opinion and bury evidence of Roundup’s cancer risks.

Jurors in Hardeman’s case first sat through weeks of scientific testimony to decide whether Roundup was a “substantial factor” in causing his illness before they heard any evidence that Monsanto ghostwrote influential studies and improperly leaned on regulators. Bayer countered that scientific studies showed the herbicide is safe and argued to the jury that damning emails were taken out of context. –Bloomberg

“It speaks volumes that not one Monsanto employee, past or present, came live to trial to defend Roundup’s safety or Monsanto’s actions,” said Hardeman’s lawyers. 

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2YIq3PZ Tyler Durden

Big Pretrial Justice Reforms Included in New York’s Budget

Andrew CuomoNew York’s 2020 budget may be a massive fiscal disaster, but it includes some good news for supporters of criminal justice reform. It includes some important changes in the state’s pretrial processes that benefit those who have been charged but not yet convicted of crimes.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo had been pushing for some of these reforms since the start of 2018, but now he’s been able to hammer out the compromises required to get them moving.

First: bail reform. New York state is not going as far as New Jersey, which has almost completely eliminated cash bail. But it will eliminate cash bail demands for misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies. The thoughtless, mechanized application of money bail across the United States has led to a culture where thousands of people are stuck in jail prior to their trials—not because they’re flight risks or dangers to the community, but because they simply cannot afford the money to pay for their freedom.

The New York Times notes that New York City has already dramatically dropped the use of cash bail without seeing a rise in the number of defendants who subsequently missed court dates. In 2017, after the decline had been underway for several decades, 86 percent of defendants showed up for court—no less than before.

New York is following in the Garden State’s footsteps by packaging bail reform with some other important changes. When New Jersey changed its pretrial system, it also put into place some changes to who gets arrested. The police had been arresting and locking up people for any number of nonviolent misdemeanors rather than citing them and releasing them with orders to show up for court. As a result, New Jersey began arresting fewer people in the first place, which kept the courts from getting clogged up with defendants as everybody involved was navigating a new pretrial system that involved actual hearings to determine the non-bail conditions for a person’s release.

The budget also reforms misdemeanor and low-level felony charges so that police, rather than arresting defendants, give them “desk appearance tickets” requiring them to show up to criminal court to answer the charges. Cuomo predicts that together these reforms will ensure that around 90 percent of defendants don’t spend their time waiting for their day in court stuck in a jail cell.

But that’s not all! New York has long suffered under terrible rules for evidence sharing that allow prosecutors to keep mum on what they’ve gotten to prove their case until the very last possible moment, making it impossible for defense attorneys to prepare and essentially forcing less-than-stellar plea bargains. The Marshall Project has been writing about these problems in a state where 98 percent of convictions come not from jury trials but from plea deals. Much as when a person cannot afford bail, this system encourages defendants to accept bad plea deals just to move things along.

Cuomo’s budget includes legislation that will require prosecutors to turn evidence over earlier (which they’re already supposed to do). More importantly, it will require that defendants be able to review this evidence before entering a guilty plea.

In a prepared statement, Norman L. Reimer, executive director of the National Association for Criminal Defense Lawyers, called these changes “the most significant legislative reform of New York’s criminal justice system in generations.” But much remains to be done, he added, “from achieving a more robust exercise of executive clemency power, to parole and probation reform, expungement of marijuana offenses, disclosure of law enforcement misconduct records, and more.”

Read more about Cuomo’s criminal justice reforms here.

from Hit & Run https://ift.tt/2JYqzG0
via IFTTT

No, Russia Hasn’t Begun A Syrian-Like Military Intervention In Venezuela

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Oriental Review,

The Mainstream Media went into a tizzy after reports emerged that Russia dispatched military aid to Venezuela over the weekend, sending two planes full of unspecified wares and accompanied by roughly 100 troops. The President of the National Constituent Assembly later confirmed the arrival but declined to describe its exact purpose, which led to foreign observers wildly speculating that Russia might be in the opening stages of a Syrian-like intervention in support of the democratically elected and legitimate government of Nicolas Maduro against the rising foreign-backed threat of regime change terrorists. That interpretation of events, however, is “jumping the gun” after a diplomatic source from Caracas told Sputnik that the visit was planned far in advance and is in no way connected to the threat of a foreign military invasion of the country.

That didn’t stop National Security Advisor Bolton from having a field day about this, though, since he quickly took advantage of the Mainstream and even Alternative Media’s speculative reports to articulate the modern-day “Monroe Doctrine” of “Fortress America” by declaring on Twitter that “The United States will not tolerate hostile foreign military powers meddling with the Western Hemisphere’s shared goals of democracy, security, and the rule of law.” He recently railed against Russia just the other week for its energy and mineral deals with Venezuela precisely because such arrangements help keep Maduro’s government afloat during this tough time of sanctions, so it’s entirely within his character to make a big public deal out of its military aid in order to fearmonger about “foreign plots” to the hemisphere while distracting from his country’s own.

Back to the reality of what’s probably happening, it’s actually commonplace for military trainers to accompany weapons shipments abroad in order to train the recipient’s armed forces in how to properly use their new equipment, and the reported presence of Russian troops in Venezuela doesn’t mean that the country is preparing for a conventional military intervention there like some suspect. In fact, not only does Russia lack the prerequisite of reliable access to Venezuela that would make such a scenario feasible in the first place, but the presence of its uniformed men on the ground halfway across the world wouldn’t be a deterrent to any conventional US strike against the South American country because America hasn’t let this stop them from regularly bombing Syria where there are many more Russian troops, equipment, and even official bases.

Russian Air Force personnel stand in front of a supersonic bomber aircraft upon landing at Maiquetia International Airport, just north of Caracas, on December 10, 2018

The Mainstream Media wants to promote the narrative of a Russian military intervention in Venezuela in order to fearmonger about Moscow’s global intentions and justify more robust US action there, while the Alternative Media is curiously hinting at the exact same narrative but for the totally opposite reason of misleadingly portraying these events as supposed proof that Russia “saved” Venezuela and got the US to back down. This case study interestingly proves that diametrically opposed information forces can sometimes share a unity of purpose in promoting “wishful thinking” narratives for totally different reasons, with the end effect inadvertently being that the global media environment becomes muddled and the average information consumer is made very confused because they wrongly assume that there must be some kernel of truth to what’s being said if both the Mainstream and many Alternative Medias are saying so.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2I0It8C Tyler Durden

Morgan Stanley Sees 70% Chance Of Downturn “As Early As Next Month”

On a day when stocks are surging because the Chinese economy is no longer sliding into contraction (according to China), one can trust Wall Street’s latest “superskeptical” foil, Morgan Stanley, to come out with a report that spoils the party.

Sure enough, in a note from strategist Serena Tang published earlier today, she writes that while Morgan Stanley’s updated US market cycle indicator is still in expansion, a phase in which it has been since 2014, the bank is now estimating that there is a 70% likelihood that this will shift to downturn over the next 12 months, and that if the recent deterioration in data persists, we could see “a switch from expansion to downturn as early as next month.”

As Tang explains, while “such turns do not necessarily mean recession” they do correspond to “materially worse return environments for credit and equities.” And so, coupled with generally low bottom-up returns from Morgan Stanley strategists’ forecasts, the bank “leans back against dreams of Goldilocks” and believes that this supports more defensive asset allocation.

Here are the details behind Morgan Stanley’s unexpectedly downbeat call.

First, a quick recap of what prompted the trigger: Morgan Stanley’s US cycle indicator combines metrics across macro, the credit cycle and corporate aggression to pinpoint where we are in the market cycle, as shown in the chart below which compares the latest iteration of the model with its most recent revision.

Of note, the revised US cycle indicator (v2019) is meant to better flag turns in real time, with greater confidence and less lag.

Morgan Stanley’s updated US cycle indicator is still in expansion…

Far more useful is that the bank’s new methodology now allows it to calculate a downturn probability and estimate the chance that the market cycle phase shifts from expansion to downturn, based on the breadth of data improvement/ deterioration. Given the stretched level of the indicator, Tang writes that the “model sees the chance of a switch to downturn as high – at nearly 70%, up from around 60% from end-2017.” Some more details:

We don’t think that this expansion can be sustained for long: Exhibit 26 shows our real-time downturn probability gauge, which estimates the chance of our cycle model inflecting to downturn from expansion within the next 12 months, based on historical experience. What this chart suggests is that, given the level of the cycle indicator, the chance of a shift to downturn over the next 12 months is elevated at close to 70%, up from ~60% from end-2017 when we last checked up on the cycle.

As a result, the probability the US cycle indicator switching from expansion to downturn is the most elevated it’s been since 2005/2006, suggesting an imminent cycle peak. In fact, a backtest shows that the probability of a downturn is now higher than it was either right before the global financial crisis or just before the dot com bust.

Of course, Morgan Stanley does not make such downbeat calls lightly – after all its clients like most other investors have been habituated by the Fed to expect only market upside – and offers extensive caveats, the first of which is that the current reading “doesn’t necessarily mean a recession is imminent – every US recession since 1955 (there have been nine) was preceded by downturn in the US cycle indicator, but not every downturn phase meant a recession would follow.” Additionally, Tang writes that the bank’s US economics team believes that the US is moving through a trough now, and more to the point, “its real-time model suggests that the probability of a recession this year remains below 10%”; this rose-colored spin is helped by Morgan Stanley’s global economics team which also sees the trio of trade tensions easing, China’s policy easing and the Fed’s focus on flexibility and patience as leading global growth to bottom in 1Q19. “This will be important to monitor” the bank adds.

With that caveat out of the way, here is what the cycle indicator does monitor: the cycle indicator relies on the idea that a  composite of measures provides the best read on the market cycle over time.

But we take some heart from other signposts, outside the model, that are sending similar signals. Around an inflection in the market cycle inflection, investors typically see credit spreads trough, bond yields peak, ISM decline and a compressed output gap. All are present today.

If MS is right, what does that mean for assets? The bank, somewhat redundantly, explains that downturns tend to see stocks and credit underperform versus average while bonds outperform, in contrast to expansion, where equities benefit from a boost to returns from the cycle. This is shown in the charts below, which look at returns (versus average) by cycle phase.

Finally, going back to its cycle indicator, Morgan Stanley drills down on what key driver has been behind this prediction and explains that “the strong unbroken run of improving data over the last year has been the main culprit.” Specifically, since April 2010, we’ve not had a six-month period where a majority of the components of the cycle indicator were not improving: “it is, to our knowledge, the longest streak in history ( Exhibit 27 ).”

Historically, such an environment of data improvement breadth and depth (with the likes of unemployment rate and consumer confidence hitting extreme levels in recent months) has meant a high probability of cycle deterioration in the next 12 months – “after all, what goes up must come down”, as Morgan Stanley puts it simply. In other words, the MS model is basically a glorified mean-revision timing indicator.

That doesn’t mean that it is wrong, however. Indeed, the latest disappointing consumer confidence data pushes the number of cycle indicator components deteriorating over the last six months to seven now – enough to be considered what MS dubs ‘critical mass’. And here is the punchline: “if such deterioration persists, our rules-based approach to identifying cycle phases could very well call a switch from expansion to downturn as early as next month.”

Finally, even if there is a modest improvement, Morgan Stanley concludes that “our market cycle indicator and the probability gauge are very clear – an inflection from expansion to downturn is on the horizon.”

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2V71FoF Tyler Durden

Cops Charge University of Arizona Students with Misdemeanors for Disrupting Event

Two University of Arizona students face misdemeanor charges after disrupting a Career Day event that featured border patrol officers.

The incident took place on March 19. The officers were speaking with students inside a classroom when two activists entered the classroom and began heckling. One, a female student, shouted “murder patrol” continuously at the officers and claimed that their presence on campus made her unsafe. Organizers asked her to leave, but she refused. The activists later followed the officers outside, where a larger group of protesters were waiting.

“University police determined today they will be charging two of the students with interference with the peaceful conduct of an educational institution, a misdemeanor,” said Arizona President Robert Robbins in a statement.

The students may also be facing academic sanctions.

Robbins argued that this was a free speech issue: Protesting the officers was acceptable, but not if it meant disrupting the event.

“At the core of these inquiries is the University of Arizona’s commitment to free speech,” said Robbins. “The student club and the CBP officers invited by the students should have been able to hold their meeting without disruption. Student protest is protected by our support for free speech, but disruption is not.”

The university did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

from Hit & Run https://ift.tt/2VglvhH
via IFTTT

Naked Climate Change Protesters Gatecrash Commons Brexit Debate

Just when we thought the ongoing Brexit drama couldn’t get any more undignified, a troupe of naked protesters have materialized in the Commons gallery to demand MPs act at once to fight climate change.

Perhaps they haven’t read the paper lately, but the Commons has been somewhat preoccupied as of late. And no, this doesn’t appear to be some kind of April Fools prank.

Police are reportedly removing the protesters one by one, while those who remain are pressing their bare buttcheeks against the chamber’s soundproof glass, with slogans apparently written in marker or body paint spread across their backs.

Speaker Bercow ordered that debate ahead of Monday’s second indicative vote proceed normally, as guests in the public gallery were treated to an, um, full-frontal view.

One Brexit reporter who missed the spectacle pointed out a bitter irony.

The Guardian’s Jessica Elgot chronicled the incident on her twitter feed as police carried the protesters out of the chamber.

Talk about a cheeky performance.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2VciGOj Tyler Durden

Here Is Why a Federal Judge Nixed California’s Ban on ‘Large Capacity Magazines’

On Friday evening, a federal judge in San Diego blocked enforcement of California’s ban on magazines that hold more than 10 rounds, deeming it inconsistent with the Second Amendment right to keep arms for self-defense. U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez concluded that “California’s law prohibiting acquisition and possession of magazines able to hold any more than 10 rounds places a severe restriction on the core right of self-defense of the home such that it amounts to a destruction of the right and is unconstitutional under any level of scrutiny.” Benitez, who in 2017 issued a stay that prevented the law from taking effect, also agreed with the plaintiffs that the ban amounts to an unconstitutional taking of property without compensation.

In the landmark 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment applies to arms in common use for lawful purposes. Benitez notes that highly popular firearms owned by millions of Americans, such as the Glock 17 pistol, the Ruger 10/22 rifle, and the AR-15 rifle, come equipped with magazines that exceed California’s arbitrary limit, which was originally imposed in 2000 and extended to pre-existing hardware by a 2016 ballot initiative. “Millions of ammunition magazines able to hold more than 10 rounds are in common use by law-abiding responsible citizens for lawful uses like self-defense,” Benitez writes. “This is enough to decide that a magazine able to hold more than 10 rounds passes the Heller test and is protected by the Second Amendment.”

While Benitez thinks that is the appropriate test, he also concludes that California’s ban on “large capacity magazines” (LCMs) fails “strict scrutiny,” which requires the government to prove that the law is narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling state interest, and even “intermediate scrutiny,” which requires that the law be substantially related to an important state interest. The LCM ban “burdens the core of the Second Amendment by criminalizing the acquisition and possession of these magazines that are commonly held by law-abiding citizens for defense of self, home, and state,” he writes. “It also fails the strict scrutiny test because the statute is not narrowly tailored—it is not tailored at all. Even under the more forgiving test of intermediate scrutiny, the statute fails because it is not a reasonable fit.”

Benitez emphasizes that the avowed aim of the LCM ban—reducing the lethality of mass shootings—is related to a small subset of “extremely rare” crimes: cases where the need to switch magazines creates a “critical pause” during which the perpetrator might be overpowered or his victims might escape. Defensive uses of guns are far more common, and at the beginning of his ruling Benitez describes several cases in which having more than 10 rounds could have made a critical difference. “From the perspective of a victim trying to defend her home and family,” he says, “the time required to re-load a pistol after the tenth shot might be called a ‘lethal pause,’ as it typically takes a victim much longer to re-load (if they can do it at all) than a perpetrator planning an attack. In other words, the re-loading ‘pause’ the State seeks in hopes of stopping a mass shooter also tends to create an even more dangerous time for every victim who must try to defend herself with a small-capacity magazine.”

California reasoned that 10 rounds are plenty for someone firing a gun in self-defense (except, somehow, for active and retired police officers), since the average number of rounds used in such cases is just 2.2. But by the same logic, the state might argue that gun owners do not really need ammunition at all, since guns are merely brandished in the vast majority of defensive uses. If there are situations where an LCM makes a significant difference in the hands of a mass shooter, there will also be situations where it makes a significant difference in the hands of someone defending himself or others. Benitez suggests a few:

When thousands of people are rioting, as happened in Los Angeles in 1992, or more recently with Antifa members in Berkeley in 2017, a 10-round limit for self-defense is a severe burden. When a group of armed burglars break into a citizen’s home at night, and the homeowner in pajamas must choose between using their left hand to grab either a telephone, a flashlight, or an extra 10-round magazine, the burden is severe. When one is far from help in a sparsely populated part of the state, and law enforcement may not be able to respond in a timely manner, the burden of a 10-round limit is severe. When a major earthquake causes power outages, gas and water line ruptures, collapsed bridges and buildings, and chaos, the burden of a 10-round magazine limit is severe. When food distribution channels are disrupted and sustenance becomes scarce while criminals run rampant, the burden of a 10-round magazine limit is severe. Surely, the rights protected by the Second Amendment are not to be trimmed away as unnecessary because today’s litigation happens during the best of times. It may be the best of times in Sunnyvale; it may be the worst of times in Bombay Beach or Potrero. California’s ban covers the entire state at all times.

Proposition 63, which required heretofore legal owners of pre-2000 LCMs to surrender them, remove them from the state, or sell them to licensed gun dealers, passed in 2016 with support from 63 percent of voters. But constitutional rights are not subject to majority approval. “Constitutional rights stand through time holding fast through the ebb and flow of current controversy,” Benitez writes. “Bad political ideas cannot be stopped by criminalizing bad political speech. Crime waves cannot be broken with warrantless searches and unreasonable seizures. Neither can the government response to a few mad men with guns and ammunition be a law that turns millions of responsible, law-abiding people trying to protect themselves into criminals. Yet this is the effect of California’s large-capacity magazine law.”

from Hit & Run https://ift.tt/2Un5A3F
via IFTTT

Twitter Blocking Users From Following Anti-Abortion Film In Second Recent ‘Glitch’

After temporarily suspending the Twitter account of a Christian-focused production company’s anti-abortion film with no explanation, some Twitter users are now reporting that they can’t follow the account for the movie Unplanned – as Twitter automatically “un-follows” them upon a refresh. 

Unplanned is based on the 2009 memoir of former Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson, who became a pro-life activist after witnessing an abortion at 13 weeks. 

US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell posted video evidence of the very liberal Twitter automatically un-following the account – asking Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Sunday “What is going on @jack? This is outrageous.” 

Of note, the ‘un-following’ may be random, or only apply to accounts with a lot of followers, as some users with small Twitter followings have reported being able to successfully follow the account, @unplannedmovie. 

Many conservative social media influencers have reported an inability to follow the film’s official account. 

R rating, no ad space

The left’s suppression of Unplanned extends far beyond just Twitter. Not only did the movie earn an “R” rating that many say never should have been handed down, TV networks have reportedly refused to sell ad time for the film. 

In short, an underage girl can get an abortion in many parts of the United States without her parents’ permission, yet can’t legally watch this movie about abortion without a parent. 

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2JVO82j Tyler Durden

Cross-Asset Volatility Positioning “Is Now Worrisome Again” – Time For A New Explosion?

Authored by Andreas Steno Larsen via Nordea Bank,

The short positioning in VIX is heavier than prior to the February and October sell-offs, which is why we are on alert to a new potential squeeze of volatility positions. From the current levels, we see the best risk/reward in long vol across assets

Intraday volatility in equity markets temporarily peaked over Christmas, when Steven Mnuchin released his now almost famous “everything is under control” statement. It ultimately proved to be the exact trough in equities and following peak in volatility, as Mnuchin promised that “liquidity would remain OK”. Either he anticipated that the Fed would end QT before the market expected them to or he simply referred to the liquidity influx in USDs caused by debt ceiling technicalities.

No matter the real reason, Mnuchin was right that liquidity would be better in Q1 – one of the reasons why equities have rallied, and volatility faded. It seems as if the market has bought almost aimlessly into Mnuchin’s promises, but is the liquidity outlook as benign as markets put it? Colour us doubtful. At least not benign enough to justify record short positioning in equity vol.

Chart 1: Mnuchin said that everything would be OK, and then equities boomed!

Dovish central banks have led volatility lower, but are they dovish enough?

Many, if not all, major central banks have taken dovish steps through Q1, but will they prove dovish enough to keep volatility from the door for the rest of the year? The Fed has moved to end QT by October, but liquidity will still dwindle month after month in the meanwhile. The ECB has offered a new TLTRO-III on what are (probably) tougher terms than TLTRO-II. Both argue for a lukewarm liquidity development at best.

If we look at the 6-month change in central bank asset ownership, it doesn’t look supportive of a further multiple expansion. Rather the opposite. Central banks won’t directly support asset valuation over the next 6-9 months either (the asset base will still shrink).

Chart 2: Central bank assets versus forward P/E

The broader liquidity trend as judged by M1 growth is also still worrisome, likely as a side effect of less benign central bank liquidity trends. Our global M1 growth indicator is also still pointing towards increasing quarter-on-quarter volatility, as slowing M1 growth and central bank liquidity leave a continuously smaller credit-cushion for markets.

Chart 3: M1 growth slows globally, usually a sign that volatility can increase

Positioning is now worrisome again …

Meanwhile positioning in short VIX has turned super short. Shorter than prior to both the February and October-December sell-offs. While a stretched short positioning in itself is not necessarily a trigger for higher volatility, it takes fewer and less severe surprises to wrong-foot market participants, when “everyone” seems to agree on a direction of lower volatility. What if the trade war or the Brexit situation suddenly explodes in a way that brings tail risks back into play? Then markets will be extremely wrong-footed.

Chart 4: Positioning is super short in VIX. A worrisome signal of (too) uniform market thinking

In the yield curve we trust

As is the case every time the US yield curve inverts (10yr-3months), economists start discussing with each other whether or not to trust the recession signal of the inversion. This time is no different in that regard, as several papers on why not to trust the yield curve have already been published.

If we allow the yield curve to be the sole “objective” judge on the timing of the next US (read potentially global) recession, then it is only 6-7 months away. It is hard to see how almost record-low volatility can persist in such an environment; at least if the yield curve recession hint is right. We don’t find convincing evidence why we shouldn’t trust the yield curve at all this time around either.

And even if the yield curve is wrong, then talk of whether the yield curve signal is right or not in the coming quarters could be enough to spur a spike in volatility.

Chart 5: The next recession is only 6-7 months away according to the USD yield curve

The yield curve is not only a decent forecaster of recessions; it is also a more than decent forecaster of volatility. The 10-2yr spread on the US treasury curve usually leads the average volatility by up to 3-years, and given the recent flattening of the USD curve, we only have even more volatile periods coming up, according to this relationship.

Chart 6: The USD yield curve suggests that average volatility will continue to rise over the next 1-2 years

The drop in volatility in FX space due to the above-mentioned liquidity reasons from dovish central banks has been further boosted by the anticipated progress in the trade war. China and USA allegedly discussed a “cap” on USD/CNY or even a target lower than today’s spot as part of the trade deal.Calm is hence restored in USD/CNY, and CNY devaluation fears have abated. If USD/CNY is stable, then USD/ASIA pairs are usually fairly stable as well, which is why progress in the trade talks has worked to further dampen FX volatility.

FX volatility tends to follow roughly the same road map as equity volatility. Hence the current CVIX (broad FX volatility) also looks too low compared to the USD yield curve. Volatility in one asset class usually triggers volatility in other classes as well. A trade deal could help to keep FX volatility low (due to the stabilisation of USD/CNY), but probably not as low as now.

Chart 7: The yield curve also predicts higher CVIX (broad FX volatility)

EUR/USD volatility looks cheaper than Scandi-vol compared to historical levels currently, but we often get the largest reactions in USD/SEK and USD/NOK volatility, when a cross-asset volatility spike hits the market. Across G10, volatility levels in 9-12-month tenors are 1-1.5 z-scores below a running historic mean. It would be unusual to see both USD/JPY and EUR/USD volatility cheapen further from current levels (see chart 8). We find 9-12-month volatility cheaper relative to shorter maturities.

Chart 8: USDJPY and EURUSD volatility is 1.5 z-scores below averages

It is less certain that “contagious” effects from higher volatility in other asset classes will show up in rates volatility. A potential renewed equity sell-off and consequently further slowdown in Europe and the US will probably only fuel the “Japanification” pricing of the ECB – i.e. low rates for much longer. Rates volatility is hence also the volatility class that shows the biggest resilience to the global slowdown predicted by the USD yield curve.

Chart 9: Rates volatility not as “easily” predicted by the USD yield curve

One way to play the volatility bet in rates space could be to buy a EUR receiver swaption 1y1y as a combined bet on i) higher cross-asset volatility, ii) a two-tier system from the ECB that would allow them to cut the depo-rate even deeper than the current -0.40%, subsequently opening the door for new historic lows in EUR rates (ECB Watch: Could tiering save bank profitability?).

Chart 10: A EUR receiver swaption could be a way to bet on higher volatility and lower rates

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Usg7dO Tyler Durden

Radioactive Fukushima Particles Found In Alaska’s Bering Strait

Radioactive particles from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have drifted as far north as a remote Alaskan island in the Bering Strait, according to scientists at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. 

Seawater collected last year near St. Lawrence Island contained a slight elevation in levels of cesium-137, a man-made radioactive isotope formed during nuclear fission. 

According to Reuters, the levels of cesium found in Alaska are far too low to pose a health hazard – as humans have been “cleared” to consume levels some 3,000-times higher than those found in the Bering Sea, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. 

Water was sampled for several years by Eddie Ungott, a resident of Gambell village on the northwestern tip of St. Lawrence Island. The island, though part of the state of Alaska, is physically closer to Russia than to the Alaska mainland, and residents are mostly Siberian Yupik with relatives in Russia.

Fukushima-linked radionuclides have been found as far away as Pacific waters off the U.S. West Coast, British Columbia and in the Gulf of Alaska.

Until the most recent St. Lawrence Island sample was tested by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the only other known sign of Fukushima radiation in the Bering Sea was detected in 2014 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. –Reuters

In 2014, trace-amounts of Fukushima radiation was found in the muscle tissue of fur seals on Alaska’s St. Paul Island in the southern Bering sea, however there was no testing of the water at the time, according to Gay Sheffield, a Sea Grant marine advisory agent based in Nome, Alaska. 

Three of the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant melted down in March 2011 after a 9.0-magnitude quake and subsequent tsunami knocked out the plant’s backup generators, disabling the pumps required to cool the reactors. 

Since then, radiation has been detected on the West Coast – including California wine, the coast of Oregon, and bluefin tuna which migrate from waters near Japan to the west coast of California and Mexico. 

And while virtually every report on Fukushima fallout on the West Coast notes that ‘the dose is measurable but extremely low’ – it’s hard to predict the long-term effects of even low levels of exposure over a lifetime.

Those who were closer to the disaster, such as several of the first responders on the USS Ronald Reagan, have subsequently been diagnosed with various forms of cancer and other illnesses. 

Via The Nation:

For Piekutowski, the lance corporal from the Essex, he didn’t feel particularly sick until over a year after Operation Tomodachi. He was back stateside in the fall of 2012, and felt fatigued and had lost weight, and in November of that year, his ankles swelled up to the size of his calves. “I’m an in-shape and slim guy, and usually have pretty good definition,” he told me. His doctor thought it might be gout, though Piekutowski was skeptical. “I told him, I drink as much as the next 21-year-old, but I don’t drink that much.” Then, on Christmas Day, he lost the sight in his left eye. “That’s when I knew I should probably get to the hospital,” he said.

In the ER, Piekutowski said the doctors seemed to recognize right away what a blood test and bone-marrow biopsy later confirmed: He had leukemia. “They were honestly surprised I was still walking,” he said. Medical staff put him in a gown and rushed him to a bigger hospital.

Piekutowski was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), an aggressive form of blood cancer most often seen in men over age 65. It is rare to see it in an otherwise healthy 21-year-old. He began treatment in Arizona, where he’d been living, but then moved to Chicago to be closer to his parents and what Piekutowski called “some pretty amazing doctors.”

From Christmas 2012 to Valentine’s Day 2014, Piekutowski figures he spent eight months in hospitals. He first went through a year of chemotherapy, but after four months in remission, his leukemia returned. He had radiation and a stem-cell transplant at the start of 2014, which has so far kept him cancer-free. But Piekutowski is still struggling to rebuild his immune system, and battling stiffness and stomach problems. “I feel like I’m 60,” he said.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2I5FJXE Tyler Durden